I manage an interactive touchscreen kiosk at an interpretation center, and it's currently running Windows 11. We've developed several interactive programs with PowerPoint that allow users to touch buttons and navigate through specific slides. However, we face a challenge: we want to stop users from exiting these programs and accessing system settings. Since there's no mouse or keyboard attached and we've disabled the pop-up touchscreen keyboard and swipe gestures in the settings, we thought putting PowerPoint into fullscreen kiosk mode would help. Unfortunately, users can still swipe up from the bottom of the screen and access the start menu. I've looked online but haven't found a straightforward solution to disable this function while keeping touchscreen capabilities. Are there any strategies to prevent users from exiting the program entirely? I'd also like to mention that we can't switch operating systems and will have no internet access after our setup. We're not equipped with any advanced IT support, and while we've considered using kiosk lockdown software like Kioware, it hasn't worked with PowerPoint so far. Any insights would be greatly appreciated!
2 Answers
What you could try is scheduling a task in Windows that automatically reopens your program if it gets closed for some reason. You can set it up in the Task Scheduler to reopen it after a minute or so if it stops running. This won't necessarily prevent users from swiping away the program, but it may help you keep it running in the background if they accidentally close it.
It sounds like you're using kiosk mode in PowerPoint, but unfortunately, the Windows 11 feature of swiping up to open the start menu might be a tough nut to crack. One workaround could be to create a screenshot of your PowerPoint slide and set it up as a desktop background. This way, you won’t even need PowerPoint to run, and it could keep users focused without the option to exit easily. Just a thought!
Thanks for the idea! However, our main goal is to completely prevent any exit from the program. If users can swipe up from the screen, they're not closing it but just hiding it, and I don’t think having it reopen will keep them out of system settings.